Motivate Students by Giving Them an Audience!

Motivating students to do their personal best work can sometimes be a challenge.  Often times students will want to just finish something quickly, regardless if the quickness of finishing the activity compromises the quality of the work! 

One strategy we use to help motivate our students to do their best work is to offer them an audience to share some of their work.  The audience is generally an audience of their choice, which may include, a friend, a group of peers, our whole class, a group from another classroom (such as younger students), another teacher, our principal, or even the entire school at one of our Celebrations of Learning.  The kicker is, the students know they may not share work with a special audience unless it is their personal best work!  

Public exhibition of work is not only a great way to help motivate students to work at their highest potential, but it is also has another benefit.  It can actually be a way to motivate other students who are in the audience!

For example, at our Celebrations of Learning, our whole school gathers, and students share something they have learned in the classroom.  This can be a research project, a math activity, a field trip experience, a writing piece...anything that reflects something the student(s) have learned in the classroom.  

Many times, students in the audience have watched a presentation, which has then motivated them to either step up the caliber of their own work or take on a new learning adventure!  Students sharing their work can actually have a positive effect on everybody involved!  So, give those students an audience and let that audience push those students to higher achievement levels!

Displaying Student Work

How many times have you walked down the hallway of a school, and you saw walls outside of classrooms covered with the same activity?  One 4th grade classroom had the students' writing about a specific prompt displayed.  One 5th grade classroom had the students' coordinate graphing activity hung up.  Another classroom wall had all of the the students' research projects.

Now, when you've seen these displays of work, how many times have you been able to tell who is the accelerated writer, as well as the limited writer?  How about the coordinate graphing genius and the coordinate graphing flop?  The amazing researcher and the struggling researcher?  

If it's the student's work hanging up, shouldn't the student get to decide what he feels is worthy of displaying publicly?  Shouldn't he get to decide what he is most proud of to share with all the people walking in the hall?   

When the teacher decides what to hang up, and it's all the same thing, the limited writer sees his "less impressive" writing hanging up next to the writing of all his peers.  (It may actually be very impressive for him and his developmental writing level; however, it may not appear so compared to the on- and above-level students' writing!) 

This is why we have "windows" hanging out in our hallway!  Our windows are made of a piece of large construction paper with the middle cut out (so it looks like a frame), which is then sent through the laminator.  This makes a frame with a piece of lamination on the inside of the frame.  This frame is then stapled on three sides to another piece of large construction paper.  You now have a "window" for student work!  It's like a big pocket, where the students put their work in at the top, and it is displayed through the laminated window.  

With these "windows," the students are able to choose what they are most proud of to put out in the hallway for public display.  They just slip their work in their window when they are ready!  The students can take ownership of what goes in the hallway, which also takes that job off of the teacher.  It's a win-win situation, as both the student and teacher benefit.   The teacher may just need to periodically check to see that all the students have something displayed. 

Publicly displaying student work should be a positive experience for students, not something that makes them feel inferior or causes them any kind of discomfort.  Letting the students choose what they want to display gives them ownership over deciding what's important to them and what reflects their best work!  This encourages them to compete with themselves (making pieces their personal best), not with their peers! 

Protocols for Decision Making

Allowing students to be involved in decision making in the classroom helps increase student engagement, encourages students to take more ownership of the decisions that are made, embeds students' perspectives in the classroom, and fosters a sense of respect amongst students and teachers.  When we involve students in the decision-making process, there are some basic protocols that can be used to facilitate this structure.  

The three primary protocols we use in our classroom are:

• Thumbs up, thumbs down:  This is as simple as it sounds!  When we are at the point of making a decision, we ask the students to give us a thumbs up if they agree, or a thumbs down if they disagree.  When students give a thumbs down, we stop and have the students explain their view.  We continue the discussion until we all come to agreement.  Every child must share their opinion by giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

• Fist of Five:  The Fist of Five is basically a spectrum of how you feel about a decision.  So, if you are in total agreement with it, you hold up a five.  If you are in complete disagreement with it, you hold up a fist.  A four means you feel good about the decision, a three means you can live with it, a two means you don't feel great about it, and a one means you just don't like it.  We continue the discussion about the decision if we have any ones or fists.   Again, every student must share their opinion by showing a fist, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.

• Traditional Voting:  While we definitely favor coming to consensus on decisions, we also understand that voting is part of the real world, so we do use it to help us with decision making as well.  We generally reserve this protocol for less important topics, such as making decisions for single events.  (i.e. What day we will eat lunch in the room?  What will the theme of our spring fundraiser be?)

Involving students in the decision making that goes on in the room can have an extremely positive effect on student achievement, student engagement, and classroom climate/culture.  Using these simple protocols can help facilitate the decision-making process, as well as ensure all the students' voices are heard!

Differentiating Through Learning Contracts...Monitoring

So you've taken the plunge and are implementing learning contracts in order to differentiate instruction and engage your students!  Now, how in the world are you supposed to monitor these contracts?!

This is what our learning contract looks like:

Learning Contract

1.  Class Names in ABC Order *See Direction Sheet __________	2.  Sorting Activity *See Direction Sheet __________
3.  Venn Diagram *See Direction Sheet __________	4.  Graphing Activity What’s Your Favorite Season? *See Direction Sheet __________
5.  Place Value Riddles *See Direction Sheet __________	6.  Mystery Numbers *See Direction Sheet __________

                     Name:  ________________________________________________

                    Date:  _________________                  Due Date:  ________________

                    Student Signature:  ________________________________________

This is the main cover sheet that each student has in order to keep track of what activities are on the contract, as well as which ones they have completed.  When a student completes an activity, the teacher's initials goes on the line in the box.  An activity is not considered complete until we put our initials in the box!  

We also have a table on our large dry erase board in our classroom.  It is formatted like this:

 

Math Contracts:	Content Contracts:
6	6
5	5
4	4
3	3
2	2
1	1
0	0

(I'll try to remember to take a picture of the actual board and post it!)  All the students have small magnets with their names on them.  I make the magnets by getting a role of magnet with the sticky backside.  I attach construction paper to the sticky part of the magnet, write the students' names on the construction paper (They're written small going down the magnet strip), and then put a layer of clear tape over the construction paper.  I then cut the students' names apart!

All the students start at 0 on the board.  When they get a contract box signed off by the teacher, they move their magnet up to 1.   When two boxes are signed off, they move up to 2.  This continues until they complete all six boxes!  This structure gives us a quick way to have an idea of where the students are in terms of getting their contract activities complete; however, more importantly, it lets the students see where they are in comparison to their peers!   This can help motivate students who struggle with staying on task and managing their time.  

Occasionally, we also will do a Status of the Class, where we call the students' names, and they tell us how many activities they have completed.  That lets us know that the magnet board is accurate and, again, let's the students who may not have paid any attention to the magnet board know where they are in relation to the work their peers have completed.  

We have a colleague who monitors contracts a little differently by actually making two copies of the learning contract cover.  She gives the student one and keeps one with the student's name on it in a binder.  As she checks off an activity on a student's contract cover, she then marks it off on her copy as well.   She can then go through her binder to see how many activities the students have completed.  

Typically, if there are students still stuck on zero when the majority of the class has moved on, we will require those students work with us or with another adult during contract time.   These are often the students who just need that support staying focused and on task!

We started the practice learning contract last week and just started our content (science) contract today, and the students LOVE them!  When it's time to clean up, there is a murmur of "Noooooooo..." around the room.  

What teacher doesn't love it when her students want to keep working when it's time to stop a learning activity?!  That is a sure sign of engagement!  :-)